Post Election Mutterings

I am encouraged by the election results. I hope this is a national repudiation of both the politics and the world view of President Obama. It is alarming how far the conversation has swung in just a few short years.

It was not that long ago that homosexual behavior was considered deviant and perverted by the masses of America. It certainly was when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. But now the mainstream media has shamed the nation into only speaking such truths in whispers behind their hands in private places where there are no ears. And now the political powers are soundly behind the lie and seeking to enforce it with the power of the sword. But the truth shall win out.

It was not long ago that taking welfare was considered a humbling and embarrassing predicament. I remember one time at Thanksgiving when the local veterans administration heard our family was having a rough go and brought over a Thanksgiving basket including a big turkey. My dad was greatly embarrassed and refused to receive the gift. He had grown up on welfare, had escaped from it, and thought it shameful to take for free what he could work for and earn. But now, tens of millions of Americans gladly receive food stamps as a basic common right. The shame has gone. And the motivation to work.

It was once shameful to be pregnant out of wedlock. It was not the end of the world. There is forgiveness in Jesus and restoration. Always has been. But the shame was a recognition that there had been a sin and that the consequences were large and just. If there was no wedding, there was a sense of shame that a baby would be brought into the world without the benefit of a mother and a father. But now, single motherhood is a growing norm. The consequence of poverty is as hard as ever. Perhaps more so. But the shame is gone. No one has done wrong. There is nothing to fix. We don't need dads. Tell that to the children, if they don't get murdered in the womb, who grow up poor, uneducated and often end up in the prison system. The worldly solution? Kill the babies, keep the fornication and the deadbeat would be dads.

I am encouraged for the reaction against Obama. He supports all the wrong things in the scenarios listed above. But I wonder if we will have the will power as a nation to correct things as far as we need to? I doubt it.

To that end, my hope is not in the politicians, even though God can use the civil magistrate as a faithful deacon. May this rejection of Obama be represented in the churches as God's people come to grips with our morally bankrupt worldview.

We need to learn to call sin sin and then deal with it. The shame of fornication, a dead beat dad, homosexual sin, a poor work ethic can all be dealt with when the guilt is dealt with. And the guilt can only be dealt with on the cross of Jesus Christ.

But thanks be to God that although He takes us where He finds us, He doesn't leave us there. He forgives, heals and restores.

First, let us thank God that He has extended His mercy to us where we did not deserve it. Then, may God's people repent of our own sins and the sins of our nation and ask God to return His favor upon us with faithful worship, faithful Christian living and faithful representatives in the public square.